Practicing Music: How the Professionals Do It

By Brian Willson and Morris Lang

Successful professional musicians—instrumentalists and vocalists alike—are always busy. Performing, teaching, family, and professional responsibilities keep them on the go around the clock, yet they still find time to practice so that they can maintain technique, prepare for upcoming performances, and thrive as a musician. In this eye-opening essay collection, these world-renowned artists share their insights on practice, from practical tips you can use today to the intangible lessons of living a musical life: Paul Austerlitz, Chris Bacas, Stefan Bauer, Evangeline Benedetti, Serena Benedetti, Bruce Bonvissuto, John Bruschini, Norman Carey, Jennifer Choi, Peter Erskine, Lars Frandsen, Gordon Gottlieb, Hill Greene, John Isley, Vic Juris, Aline Kiryayeva, Morris “Arnie” Lang, Deb Lyons, Jacqueline Martelle, Shoko Nagai and Satoshi Takeishi, Andy Narell, Isabelle O'Connell, Richard O'Donnell, Victor Rendn, Sonny Rollins, Jay Rosen, Michael Rosen, Terry Silverlight, Andrew White, III, Brian Willson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781574635355

Brian Willson

Brian Willson is a babaláwo (specialist in the Yorùbá system of Ifá) and a senior member of temple Ilé Òkànràn Onílè based in Ibadan and New York. He has been a practitioner of African diasporic religious practices for over forty years. He received his DMA from City University of New York Graduate Center, has lectured or performed in over twenty-five countries, and is a trustee on the board of Education Africa.

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Meredith Music Publications

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MEREDITH MUSIC PUBLICATIONS and its stylized double M logo are trademarks of MEREDITH MUSIC PUBLICATIONS, a division of GIA Publications, Inc.

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While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.

Copyright © 2020 MEREDITH MUSIC PUBLICATIONS, a division of GIA Publications, Inc.

International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

First Edition

January 2021

Text and cover design: Shawn Girsberger

G-10180

Print ISBN: 978-1-57463-534-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-57463-535-5

for Liz and Sonia

In Memoriam

Vic Juris, 1953–2019

Andrew Nathaniel White III, 1942–2020

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all of the musicians who have contributed their ideas and experiences to this book. Ours is a unique profession that requires a lifetime of learning new material and constant physical maintenance. Effective practice technique matters .

Royalties from the sale of this work with be contributed to Education Africa. Established in 1989 by James Urdang, Education Africa is a non-profit organization that aims to alleviate poverty for disadvantaged South Africans through educational interventions, with projects in 9 provinces, impacting some 600 schools and tens of thousands of learners.

www.educationafrica.org

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Practicing the Self

Paul Austerlitz

What to Practice? Everything . . .

Chris Bacas

With a Spirit of Discovery

Stefan Bauer

A Fresh Approach

Evangeline Benedetti

Forgive Everything

Serena Benedetti

Practice Practices

Bruce Bonvissuto

Getting Intuit!

John Bruschini

Holistic Practice with Heart, Head, and Hands

Norman Carey

Plug Me In! A Recipe for Violin and Electronics

Jennifer Choi

What the Doctor Ordered: Practicing Drum Set

Peter Erskine

Fingers Are Stupid!

Lars Frandsen

Practice What You Need to Get to Your Destination

Gordon Gottlieb

Past, Present, Future: In Conversation with Hill Greene

Hill Greene

Practicing, Eh?

John Isley

Top 10 Keys to Practicing

Vic Juris

Revelations in Practicing

Aline Kiryayeva

Three Phases of My Performing Life

Morris Arnie Lang

Notes from a Gig Girl

Deb Lyons

Why I Continue to Practice

Jacqueline Martelle

Practicing Composing

Shoko Nagai and Satoshi Takeishi

Notes on Not Practicing

Andy Narell

Every Moment Counts: In Conversation with Isabelle O’Connell

Isabelle O’Connell

On Maintaining a Regular Schedule

Richard O’Donnell

Enjoy the Process

Victor Rendón

Just Play One Note!

Sonny Rollins

To Become Selfless with an Open Mind and Heart

Jay Rosen

Practice: Concentration and the Performance

Michael Rosen

The Joy of Practicing

Terry Silverlight

You Can’t Get There by Praying!

Andrew White, III

Chipping Away at Stone

Brian Willson

About the Authors

Introduction

I have known Morris Arnie Lang for forty years, first as my teacher when I was a graduate student at Brooklyn College with a jazz degree and a year of classical percussion under my belt (to this day I’m not sure why Arnie took me on), then later as his colleague (I got better!). Together, we ran the internationally recognized BC Percussion Ensemble for eleven years. Even that seems a while ago, but now, as dear friends, we share a lot of dinners and conversation.

A few years back one of those conversations centered around a series of articles that he was compiling concerning how to practice percussion. He invited me to contribute, and I answered with a resounding YES. I wrote my article, but nothing came of that series. Then just last year Arnie approached me again—but this time with Meredith Music behind the project. The goal was to expand the topic and open it to all instrumentalists and singers. I loved the idea and he asked me to be associate editor.

Arnie’s concept was to provide minimal guidance in order to allow each author to write freely. A caveat for submission was that we would not let any author read any other’s work, nor would we attempt to give boundaries of length, style, or content. Many of our authors immediately questioned us: How long? What style? What are you looking for? These are all typical, valid questions for a mainstream academic submission. We wanted the opposite, though: a free-for-all, if you will. An academic approach was not necessary or desired; we instructed our authors to write what they wanted to write. This turned out to yield an improbable variety of creative essays; we stood by our guidelines (or lack thereof) to our great satisfaction.

Some of my submissions leaned more towards the jazz world I’m most familiar with, along with a few classical players, and of course Arnie knows countless great classical players from his forty-year history with the New York Phil. Correction: Arnie knows everybody—from Charlie Watts to Billy Cobham to Will Lee—and even got jazz great Peter Erskine to contribute. Interestingly, without trying to do so, we each ended up with almost the same number of submissions. We just reached out to people we knew; it was a very organic process.

Two articles were conducted in conversation style at the authors’ request, Isabelle O’Connell and Hilliard Greene. Andrew White’s submission was excerpted from his treatise on practicing, and the Sonny Rollins interview was conducted by phone.

It was so enjoyable connecting and reconnecting with folks on a creative project like this, but it has been even more enjoyable to see how these essays have influenced the way I practice and even the way I think about myself as an artist/musician. Great musicians often possess a rare sense of humility, coupled with and informed by extreme self-awareness and self-criticism. Many of these essays made me feel better about myself. I thought, Wow, not every great player was a virtuoso by twelve years old, or practiced eight hours a day! Certain ideas—even single sentences—have stayed with me and forced me to examine the manner in which I practice and process information. In this brotherhood/sisterhood of musicians, we all know that searching for improvement on our instrument is a never-ending process. As Pablo Casals answered in this famous quote when asked why he continues to practice four and five hours a day: "Because I think I am making progress."

We hope you have an equally enlightening and enjoyable experience reading these articles.

—Brian Willson

While leading the ensemble at Brooklyn College, Brian Willson was my assistant much of the time. Besides being a great percussionist, he has an organized and refreshing mind and is a joy to play with and work with. He has inspired much of this book.

—Morris Arnie Lang

Practicing the Self

Paul Austerlitz

Paul Austerlitz is professor of music and Africana studies at The Sunderman Conservatory at Gettysburg College.

In music, the term practicing is usually contrasted with playing. We practice scales to help us play compositions, and we practice pieces so that we can perform them well. But it’s interesting to think about the word in a different way. The Oxford English Dictionary defines practice as the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it. We say that doctors practice medicine, or we say that lawyers practice law. I like to think of my musical practice as the sum total of everything I do musically. And because I can’t separate music from other parts of my life, maybe everything I do is musical practice.

Charlie Parker was quoted as saying, Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. For John Coltrane, musical mastery extended from a general process of self-cultivation and spiritual development. He said:

There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.

You hold the mirror close to your face because you want high personal scrutiny. But you look so closely that inevitably you breathe onto the mirror, and you fog it up. Then you wipe it off and start over. It’s a continual process of introspection, of personal purification. You can hear this in Coltrane’s music; he was always defining new pathways to refine his art. His artistic perfectionism was a manifestation of his spiritual perfectionism, of the intense striving for transcendence that informed his virtue and his virtuosity.

Instructions for meditation admonish us to concentrate on one thing—for example, on a mantra. We are told that if our minds wander while meditating, we should let the thoughts go and peacefully return to the concentration zone, return to the mantra. Well, when we play music, we are doing the exact same thing. We focus on the moment and on the materials at hand. The music is going by in real time, so there is no time to think; expression comes from a place deeply ingrained in the psyche. The musician expresses who she is in the moment; she practices the art of being herself.

I have heard that some Buddhist monks specialize in walking. Just walking can be a form of spiritual practice when done with extreme mindfulness. Especially when improvising, we express the sum total of who we are through sound, giving others a glimpse into our deeper selves. When done in an ensemble, improvised music becomes a group meditation, a communal connection to the Universal Now.

Even if we think of practicing as preparation for performance, it’s helpful to remember that everything we do influences our development. After graduating from college, I started playing jazz and Afro-Latin music, and a few years later, I decided to pursue a PhD in ethnomusicology. Contacts I had made as a performing musician opened doors when I did field work for my dissertation on Dominican merengue. As I conducted research, I performed regularly in the US, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and beyond. I played to nourish my muse, but I also always made connections between ethnomusicology and situations I faced in performance. After finishing my studies and starting to teach, I continued to perform, incorporating Dominican, Haitian, and other global influences into my music. Sometimes I thought that ethnomusicology was taking me away from my creativity, but actually, playing had become symbiotically related to my work as a scholar. The two nourished each other.

I have long been drawn to the rich constellation of African-derived religious practices. My experiences in New York City’s thriving Afro-Caribbean communities and my travels in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, as well as Cuba, Brazil, and Nigeria exposed me to wonderful worlds of spiritual practice, which I eventually pursued under the tutelage of the late, great Vodou priest Houngan Max Beauvoir and Manbo Nicole Miller. My experiences in ritual settings informed my engagement with the transformative power of music, and the inner nourishment that I imbibed spiritually fed my development as an artist, scholar, and individual.

As my musico-scholarly-devotional journey unfolded, my creative, academic, and spiritual pursuits continued to meld. Contacts with players opened doors when I did fieldwork, while my accomplishments as a scholar attracted the attention of established musicians, opening not only research avenues but also providing opportunities to continue developing as an artist. And spiritual inductions initiated travels along transcendent mind-body-spirit pathways. One might assume that since I perform professionally today, I was an established player prior to becoming an ethnomusicologist. The opposite is true: While I aspired to be a professional musician as a young man, it was only after I had matured as a scholar that my musicianship came to full fruition. The symbiosis of my development as a player, scholar, and spiritual seeker has impressed upon me the extent to which musical thinking is scholarly, academic work is expressive, and spiritual work is creative as well as intellectual.

To the Pythagoreans, music was nothing less than a sublime manifestation of Cosmic Harmony: sounds microcosmically manifest the motions of the sun, moon, and the other heavenly bodies. Bird’s words, If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn, show that sum total of all the things you are go into your art. Coltrane’s admonition to keep cleaning the mirror reminds us that walking mindfully is a virtuous process of personal growth. If I have learned anything, it’s this: Just keep practicing your self.

What to Practice? Everything . . .

Chris Bacas

Chris Bacas is a multi-instrumentalist of international repute with numerous recordings and tours to his credit.

In the fall of 1970, I brought a Bundy tenor saxophone home from school. I was nine and in Mrs. Farrar’s fifth grade class. To celebrate, my father slid an LP called Soultrane out of a blue and white cardboard jacket. The first sounds from our record player’s single speaker: a sinewy folk song spinning free into endless cascades. Dad explained it was my new horn, in the hands of John Coltrane. I’d never heard of him and nothing I heard that day seemed possible, anyway.

Teachers have been centrifugal and centripetal forces, directing me outward for knowledge and methods and inward for focus and (in)security. I have always looked for ways to expand what I could do on my instrument(s). What has changed is my understanding of both the necessary skills and my emotional topography.

In the weeks before school lessons began, I just played. The mouthpiece looked better with the reed on top, tickling my upper lip, so it stayed there. With the Breeze Easy Method book, I figured out the names and fingerings of most notes. I sounded out some songs. Certain combinations sounded good—A, C, D, E, G, adding E-flat and G-sharp for seasoning. That became my scale.

Holmes Royer, a man as elegant as his name, saw my instrument in the first lesson and heard the squawks. He reached over and rotated my mouthpiece.

Try this, he said, chuckling.

My pattern was set: I’d teach myself in marathon sessions and show up overprepared but lacking some key skill: intonation, correct rhythm, steady tempo. My teachers must have chuckled often, or just cringed.

I bought my first jazz record. I’d exhausted the Coltrane in my dad’s collection and found one I hadn’t seen before, a saxophone and drums duet called Interstellar Space. The music seemed to hover in a massive chamber. There were bells close to my ears, monsoon snare and cymbals with a saxophone in the vastness. The saxophone sound was unbearably sweet. Its recitations reminded me of my uncle chanting the Orthodox liturgy. That wasn’t anything I could imitate. I did start playing in the bathroom as often as possible to emulate the vastness I heard. John Coltrane remained a mountain on the horizon, towering, inscrutable, unattainable.

My reading skills never advanced. I was enthusiastic about everything else, though. Starting high school, I knew major scales and a couple minor scales, and all the key signatures, and copied what I could hear from records.

My tone and pitch remained wild, though I began to refine my sound with the help of a master of three woodwinds, Tom Strohman. In a conservatory summer program, the professor warmed up a strobe tuner for each of our lessons. My confidence cooled off. He told me I wasn’t good enough with repertoire to get into conservatory.

I went to college in Texas, taking along a new hero, George Coleman, an absolute master of chord progressions. To even approach his fluidity, I knew I’d need to drill fundamentals. I made a schedule of scales—scales in all possible intervals and arpeggios. I also made a list of tunes to learn. I’d smoke weed, sit at the piano, and learn a new tune, then close my eyes and test myself with a metronome. When I came down, I’d start my saxophone routine, checking off each area with a metronome marking. Because of my lack of reading skills and wobbly sound, I failed in every audition or jury. Eventually, I lied my way into a re-audition with the head of my department. He humiliated me in front of his grad assistants and told me to consider another career. I walked around for months with that verdict crushing me.

Over the summer, I practiced Louis Bellson’s Modern Reading Text. With drum sticks, I played and counted aloud each measure on every page, starting daily in different places to stay fresh and always varying the metronome. I kept up with my scale schedule. Learning just one interval set in every key/combination sometimes took multiple sessions. After four months of the reading regime, I finally nailed